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APT19 is a China-linked espionage threat actor known for long-running intrusion activity against organizations in multiple countries, particularly in support of intelligence collection. Widely used aliases include Deep Panda, Black Vine, Codoso Team, Codoso, Shell Crew, Checkered Typhoon, PinkPanther, Red Gargoyle, WebMasters, and several vendor-specific cluster names. Reporting has at times treated some of these names as overlapping or partially distinct clusters, but they are commonly associated with the broader APT19 intrusion set. APT19 is known for spearphishing-based initial access, including malicious document attachments such as RTF and macro-enabled spreadsheet files used to deliver exploits or follow-on payloads. The group has repeatedly abused native Windows tooling and scripting, especially PowerShell, to execute payloads, download and run code in memory, and reduce on-disk artifacts. It has also used hidden PowerShell window execution for defense evasion. Operational tradecraft associated with APT19 includes DLL sideloading through legitimate executables, abuse of regsvr32 for payload execution and application control bypass, encoded command-and-control traffic using Base64, and string decryption with simple XOR-based routines in some malware variants. The group has established persistence through Windows Registry autorun mechanisms and modified Registry settings as part of malware configuration and execution. Post-compromise activity includes process discovery using Tasklist, collection of host profiling data such as hostname, CPU, architecture, and username, and local network configuration discovery including MAC and IP address collection. The actor is assessed primarily as an espionage operator rather than a financially motivated or ransomware-focused group. Its observed behavior is consistent with targeted intelligence collection, stealthy execution, and sustained access within victim environments.
Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
Geographies tied to known operations.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
42 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
19 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
14 additional families tracked in Mallory.
7 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 7 of them exploited in the wild.
A Chinese advanced persistent threat tracked as Deep Panda has been observed exploiting the Log4Shell vulnerability in VMware Horizon servers to deploy a backdoor and a novel rootkit on infected machines with the goal of stealing sensitive data. The latest set of attacks documented by Fortinet shows that the infection procedure involved the exploitation of the Log4j remote code execution flaw (aka Log4Shell) in vulnerable VMware Horizon servers.
This detection identifies instances where Windows Explorer.exe spawns PowerShell or cmd.exe processes, particularly focusing on executions initiated by LNK files. This behavior is associated with the ZDI-CAN-25373 Windows shortcut zero-day vulnerability, where specially crafted LNK files are used to trigger malicious code execution through cmd.exe or powershell.exe. This technique has been actively exploited by multiple APT groups in targeted attacks through both HTTP and SMB delivery methods.
FireEye recently identified another targeted attack campaign that leveraged both the recently announced Internet Explorer zero-day, CVE-2013-1347, as well as recently patched Java exploits CVE-2013-2423 and CVE-2013-1493. ... If a visitor to one of these compromised website was running Internet Explorer 8.0 the malicious javascript would redirect them to a page at www[.]sunshop[.]com[.]tw hosting a CVE-2013-1347 exploit. ... The Internet Explorer (CVE-2013-1347) exploit code pulled down a “9002” RAT from another compromised site at hk[.]sz181[.]com.
The second jar file had a MD5 of 3fbb7321d8610c6e2d990bb25ce34bec and exploited CVE-2013-1493. ... The jar that exploited CVE-2013-1493 dropped a 9002 RAT with a MD5 of 42bd5e7e8f74c15873ff0f4a9ce974cd. ... The exploit site at sunshop[.]com[.]tw previously hosted a different malicious jar file on April 2, 2013. This jar file had a MD5 of 51aff823274e9d12b1a9a4bbbaf8ce00. It exploited CVE-2013-1493 and dropped a Poison Ivy RAT.
The java exploits were packaged as two different jar files. One jar file had a MD5 of f4bee1e845137531f18c226d118e06d7 and exploited CVE-2013-2423. The jar that exploited CVE-2013-2423 dropped a 9002 RAT with a MD5 of d99ed31af1e0ad6fb5bf0f116063e91f. This RAT connected to a command and control server at asp[.]homesvr[.]linkpc[.]net.
2 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
211 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Listed as one of many threat actors associated with the detection's ATT&CK-style annotations for PowerShell and DNS TXT command-and-control behavior; no specific campaign or activity is described in this reference.
Listed as an associated threat actor in detection annotations for Ghostscript exploitation; no specific campaign activity is described in this reference.
Listed as an associated threat actor in the detection annotation for exploitation of the public-facing PTC Windchill vulnerability CVE-2026-4681.
Listed as a threat actor associated with PowerShell execution behavior relevant to this detection.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.